Yesterday started badly, inasmuch as I woke up at 9.30, sat down at my PC, and found that it had rebooted during the night. That alone isn’t so abnormal - once before Windows Update decided that an update it was applying needed a restart *right* *now*, and so rebooted the machine, but I’d disabled that option since. So I log in, and I find that I have no sound. Programs that use sound recording (like Skype) are giving errors. There do not appear to be any sound devices present on the machine.

Shit.

I reboot; nothing. I reinstall sound drivers; still nothing.

Shit.

I then happen to glance through the window in my case, and note that the chipset cooling fan and heatsink is resting peacefully on the case floor, thoroughly detached from the chip it is supposed to be chilling.

Fuck.

Cue the fastest shutdown operation in recent history.
I pop open the case and gingerly feel around. I touch the chip in question, and it’s cool. This is the first good sign, but it goes unnoticed in the general panic. I curse the bastard who designed the cooler (an Akasa AK-210 with a pretty blue LED); for thinking that a fan and heatsink could be secured on to a vertical chip with only a sticker. I try sticking the cooler back on. It stays, until I hit the power button, when the infinitesimally small jolt of the fan springing into life causes it to detach from the chip once again. I start trying to think of ways to attach it. Eventually I decide to try to locate some thermal paste, cursing the fact that all my hardware bits and bobs are at home. I walk over to Lazer Lizard - what passes for a computer shop on campus. I ask the cashier, “this may be a long shot, but do you have any thermal paste?” I receive a strange look. “It’s a sort of goo,” I offer, but no, she responds, they don’t.

Walking back, I realise that laying the PC on its side will probably work, as the cooler will just sit on the chip, unencumbered by gravity. Once home, I do this, and it’s working fine so far. Plus all my cool LEDs are projected skywards, which looks sweeter than before. After booting up, the sound was working again (it was that chip), so I can only assume that the mainboard shuts the chip off if it gets too hot on boot. No lasting damage, thank fuck.